According to a report from The Information (subscription required; via Business Insider), it seems that the deal fell through because the company felt that Google did not offer them enough to make it a tempting deal. For those unfamiliar with the company, they specialize in creating fake meat.
Apparently the meat is good enough to look and taste like a ground beef burger, except that it is completely made from plants, which in turn makes it more sustainable especially in countries where it’s harder to raise cattle. It is unclear as to why Google might want to buy such a company, but like we said its sustainability might have been one of the reasons.
In fact the company has been backed in the past by other notable figures in the tech industry, such as Bill Gates, Tony Fadell, and Khosla Ventures, all of whom helped to raise a whopping $74 million in funding. Then again, Google does have an arm which researches and comes up with all kinds of crazy ideas, so perhaps getting into the food industry might not be so ludicrous after all.